Cops Are The Worst

[Mickey]

Where to even start.

Go back to the beginning, and then quit.

If I honestly thought you were capable of good-faith discussion, of reading long comments with patience and nuance, and of deferring to decades of critical scholarship based in fieldwork over some nebulous felt experience, media headlines, or "conservative principles" then yes, I would take the opportunity to explain to you that "all cops are racist," much like "all cops are bastards," doesn't mean that all cops are people who, being personally racist and/or bastards, chose to become police. It means that by performing the labor of policing in contemporary society, they uphold the structural and systematic forces of racism and inequality: they have put themselves in a position through the career they elected into of being called upon to enforce the (racist) status quo as representatives of the state's primary means of force. Who evicted black families from their homes post-2008, when we witnessed black homeownership rates regressing to pre-civil-rights levels? Cops. Who carried out the War on Drugs in black neighborhoods? Cops. Who are currently assaulting protestors calling for racially just policing and then resigning EN MASSE when one of their own is suspended for excessive force? Cops. That doesn't mean that they made these policies--they're not as responsible for the *systematic* effects as, say, Reagan, or Biden, or any of the other ghouls on both sides of the aisle who have overseen the post-68 transformation of the Keynesian state into the contemporary police state we live in. But most importantly, as a cop, do you get to pick and choose which assignments you enforce and which you don't? Obviously not. So a cop who manages to have a thirty-year career without ever doing anything that perpetuates racist inequalities in a thoroughly racist society (one where, for example, the average white family has nearly ten times the wealth of the average black family, something that cannot be disentangled from redlining, from the way inherited wealth compounds and from how black families have been prevented from accumulating wealth for decades) is at best an accident of history, and for all intents and purposes does not exist.

None of this is disproven by noting that cops have also executed white people (though we should note that Timpa was disabled), nor by noting that the individual cops who uphold these racist structures are non-white--because it isn't about the individual people. It's not some ahistorical maxim that only bad people become cops. It's that the labor of policing in what is ultimately an unjust society cannot be redeemed.

So were I to believe, then, that you were capable of thinking critically about these claims, of looking into the matter further, of reading books by scholars like Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Stuart Hall, Mike Davis and Valeria Veigh Weis, I'd be happy to lay out, with citations, the case for the work of policing being in some essential way racist. But I have no faith that you would do anything beyond posting a Facebook meme or calling it "retarded." So I'll save myself the labor, though I'm happy to send reading recs from my own study to anyone who's interested.

[Mickey]

BUT since we're clearly not going to have that conversation, please enjoy this delightful video:

[PHATJ]

Where to even start.

Go back to the beginning, and then quit.

If I honestly thought you were capable of good-faith discussion, of reading long comments with patience and nuance, and of deferring to decades of critical scholarship based in fieldwork over some nebulous felt experience, media headlines, or "conservative principles" then yes, I would take the opportunity to explain to you that "all cops are racist," much like "all cops are bastards," doesn't mean that all cops are people who, being personally racist and/or bastards, chose to become police. It means that by performing the labor of policing in contemporary society, they uphold the structural and systematic forces of racism and inequality: they have put themselves in a position through the career they elected into of being called upon to enforce the (racist) status quo as representatives of the state's primary means of force. Who evicted black families from their homes post-2008, when we witnessed black homeownership rates regressing to pre-civil-rights levels? Cops. Who carried out the War on Drugs in black neighborhoods? Cops. Who are currently assaulting protestors calling for racially just policing and then resigning EN MASSE when one of their own is suspended for excessive force? Cops. That doesn't mean that they made these policies--they're not as responsible for the *systematic* effects as, say, Reagan, or Biden, or any of the other ghouls on both sides of the aisle who have overseen the post-68 transformation of the Keynesian state into the contemporary police state we live in. But most importantly, as a cop, do you get to pick and choose which assignments you enforce and which you don't? Obviously not. So a cop who manages to have a thirty-year career without ever doing anything that perpetuates racist inequalities in a thoroughly racist society (one where, for example, the average white family has nearly ten times the wealth of the average black family, something that cannot be disentangled from redlining, from the way inherited wealth compounds and from how black families have been prevented from accumulating wealth for decades) is at best an accident of history, and for all intents and purposes does not exist.

None of this is disproven by noting that cops have also executed white people (though we should note that Timpa was disabled), nor by noting that the individual cops who uphold these racist structures are non-white--because it isn't about the individual people. It's not some ahistorical maxim that only bad people become cops. It's that the labor of policing in what is ultimately an unjust society cannot be redeemed.

So were I to believe, then, that you were capable of thinking critically about these claims, of looking into the matter further, of reading books by scholars like Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Stuart Hall, Mike Davis and Valeria Veigh Weis, I'd be happy to lay out, with citations, the case for the work of policing being in some essential way racist. But I have no faith that you would do anything beyond posting a Facebook meme or calling it "retarded." So I'll save myself the labor, though I'm happy to send reading recs from my own study to anyone who's interested.

I actually agree with several of the points you just made. And again, for the umteenth time, I do not, have not, and am not supporting police. And I haven’t said a single time that I was. I’ve actually said the exact opposite every time. And FYI, the things you just laid out aren’t foreign concepts to me.

[verb_to_trust]

If I raped Josh the police would need to get involved. It's obviously annoying, but we do need police for things. When people say "abolish the police" or "I don't support police", is that realistic?

[PHATJ]

If I raped Josh the police would need to get involved. It's obviously annoying, but we do need police for things. When people say "abolish the police" or "I don't support police", is that realistic?

Why are you so sexually obsessed with me, verb?

[PHATJ]

Also, verb. I guarantee you that if you ever laid a finger on me, I’d beat you into ground beef. I heard you brag about weighing something like 150 pounds a while back. If that’s actually true, I could literally pick you up over my head and throw you. You could hit me as hard as you possibly could, and I would literally laugh in your face. I dwarf you. You are a puny bitch of a man, and I’d have zero difficulty stopping your tiny pecker from raping anything near me.

[McParadigm]

Firstly do no harm

[Simple Torture]

Now this thread is really going places.

[verb_to_trust]

Also, verb. I guarantee you that if you ever laid a finger on me, I’d beat you into ground beef. I heard you brag about weighing something like 150 pounds a while back. If that’s actually true, I could literally pick you up over my head and throw you. You could hit me as hard as you possibly could, and I would literally laugh in your face. I dwarf you. You are a puny bitch of a man, and I’d have zero difficulty stopping your tiny pecker from raping anything near me.

I'm at 165 and ran 30.9 miles last week at a respectable mile pace

[verb_to_trust]

If I raped Josh the police would need to get involved. It's obviously annoying, but we do need police for things. When people say "abolish the police" or "I don't support police", is that realistic?

Why are you so sexually obsessed with me, verb?

I'm just trying to illustrate my point! We can't have a copless society no matter how sweet that would be.

[Peeps]

verb vs phatj


who ya got

[Mickey]

Where to even start.

Go back to the beginning, and then quit.

If I honestly thought you were capable of good-faith discussion, of reading long comments with patience and nuance, and of deferring to decades of critical scholarship based in fieldwork over some nebulous felt experience, media headlines, or "conservative principles" then yes, I would take the opportunity to explain to you that "all cops are racist," much like "all cops are bastards," doesn't mean that all cops are people who, being personally racist and/or bastards, chose to become police. It means that by performing the labor of policing in contemporary society, they uphold the structural and systematic forces of racism and inequality: they have put themselves in a position through the career they elected into of being called upon to enforce the (racist) status quo as representatives of the state's primary means of force. Who evicted black families from their homes post-2008, when we witnessed black homeownership rates regressing to pre-civil-rights levels? Cops. Who carried out the War on Drugs in black neighborhoods? Cops. Who are currently assaulting protestors calling for racially just policing and then resigning EN MASSE when one of their own is suspended for excessive force? Cops. That doesn't mean that they made these policies--they're not as responsible for the *systematic* effects as, say, Reagan, or Biden, or any of the other ghouls on both sides of the aisle who have overseen the post-68 transformation of the Keynesian state into the contemporary police state we live in. But most importantly, as a cop, do you get to pick and choose which assignments you enforce and which you don't? Obviously not. So a cop who manages to have a thirty-year career without ever doing anything that perpetuates racist inequalities in a thoroughly racist society (one where, for example, the average white family has nearly ten times the wealth of the average black family, something that cannot be disentangled from redlining, from the way inherited wealth compounds and from how black families have been prevented from accumulating wealth for decades) is at best an accident of history, and for all intents and purposes does not exist.

None of this is disproven by noting that cops have also executed white people (though we should note that Timpa was disabled), nor by noting that the individual cops who uphold these racist structures are non-white--because it isn't about the individual people. It's not some ahistorical maxim that only bad people become cops. It's that the labor of policing in what is ultimately an unjust society cannot be redeemed.

So were I to believe, then, that you were capable of thinking critically about these claims, of looking into the matter further, of reading books by scholars like Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Stuart Hall, Mike Davis and Valeria Veigh Weis, I'd be happy to lay out, with citations, the case for the work of policing being in some essential way racist. But I have no faith that you would do anything beyond posting a Facebook meme or calling it "retarded." So I'll save myself the labor, though I'm happy to send reading recs from my own study to anyone who's interested.

I actually agree with several of the points you just made. And again, for the umteenth time, I do not, have not, and am not supporting police. And I haven’t said a single time that I was. I’ve actually said the exact opposite every time. And FYI, the things you just laid out aren’t foreign concepts to me.

That's fine that you agree with the subpoints--I do think they're well-proven--but unless I'm mistaken, you still don't agree with the logical conclusion: that police labor fundamentally upholds a racist system, or, in shorthand, all cops are racists.

[Mickey]

And for the elevendy gagillionth time, I do not support the police. I haven’t from the beginning. I was supporting protests outside of cops homes weeks before this George Floyd murder happened. Can all of you get that through your thick skulls? I can’t even count how many times I’ve said I support peaceful protests. I can’t count how many times I’ve said Floyd was murdered and all the cops involved needed to be arrested and sentenced to the longest term possible. The only thing I haven’t supported It rioting, looting, and destroying the city.

Here's precisely the problem, Josh--or one of them, anyway. You can say, "I don't support police." You can say, "fuck the police." And you can also say, "I don't support looting." I myself say all of these things, with the caveat that I'm only really against looting small, locally-owned businesses, and only because it is potentially counter-productive to building a broad oppositional coalition. I don't give a shit what happens to Target, especially during a pandemic when working people are hurting for basic necessities, and I think burning down the police station was fucking metal because buildings and corporations not only are not-people but are symbols for the violence and oppression visited upon vulnerable people. But on the substance of what seems to be your biggest concern with looting--that it hurts members of the community who own those small businesses (though presumably they have insurance which would cover any losses)--we agree.

But you're not making that caveat. You, at least in what you've argued here, are against looting full stop, not because you think it's counter-productive to the cause but because you think it violates the property right of business owners, be they Joey Minneapolis' Hardware or the Target Corporation. Just a few days ago you complained that the bail system in New York was making it harder to hold accused looters in jail pre-trial. Okay. So who is going to enforce the business owner's property rights? The police. What measures are they going to take to enforce those rights? Violence. How do you think that violence is going to be meted out, what color bodies do you think are going to receive the bulk of that violence, and is this violence against black and brown bodies in defense of (insured) property more acceptable than violence against property in anger against black and brown treatment by the police? In other words, holding this position that, well, okay, you're against police, but only so long as property rights aren't violated, means that you're by and large OK with the police and the function they perform in society. It doesn't much matter if you're "against the police" if you support their right to put down a protest once some windows are broken. Many of us in this thread are not pro-looting, even if we understand the reasons for it and are sympathetic to them. But part of what constitutes anyone's given politics is knowing when to speak and when to shut up. And if you truly understood this, then you wouldn't be out here posting videos of white victims of police brutality, noting that three of the accomplices to Floyd's murder were non-white, or complaining about property damage to insured commercial properties, all of which are attempts to obfuscate the simple point being made right now by way of the protests: that policing is racist, that it upholds racism through its material actions.

[96583UP]

it took a while to catch up on this thread, and see so many of those videos of cops out bashing people who are unarmed

i am pretty surprised there are not stories of protestors mobbing the police and fighting back

what a bunch of pussies

<checks if Charmin Ultra Soft is re-stocked on Costco.com>

[Birds in Hell]

But you're not making that caveat. You, at least in what you've argued here, are against looting full stop, not because you think it's counter-productive to the cause but because you think it violates the property right of business owners, be they Joey Minneapolis' Hardware or the Target Corporation.

I think the overwhelming majority of people think this, not just PHATJ.

[LetMeSleep]

[dimejinky99]

Saw the most fucked up disturbing video yet.
A homeless man in a wheelchair who is completely mentally retarded and unable to communicate or understand instructions

Three cops. Three. Shouting Hands in the air at at him And he’s kind of looking around for about 10 seconds and puts his hands in his lap.

They opened fire all three and he falls dead out of his wheelchair.

It’s Fucking traumatising I’m not posting it here.
But It fucked me

[dimejinky99]

Some good news and he’s been fired too.

[Higgs]

Some good news and he’s been fired too.

I know he won't, but that "conceivably... 30 years in prison" is another crazy arse thing. Dude is a right fuck-stick, but no way does he deserve any prison time for what he did. Perhaps a night in lock up whilst being booked.

Damn glad he got found and charged though.

[Higgs]

But you're not making that caveat. You, at least in what you've argued here, are against looting full stop, not because you think it's counter-productive to the cause but because you think it violates the property right of business owners, be they Joey Minneapolis' Hardware or the Target Corporation.

I think the overwhelming majority of people think this, not just PHATJ.

Well, when you put it that way...